Yes! It works! I’m so excited that I finally made a gif from my 3D camera that I had to post it straight away! Thankyou Nishika N8000 – all the elements have finally come together for gif creation. Mainly the trouble has been that all the photolabs charge too much to scan the unusal shaped negatives, so I haven’t seen any results except from holding my negatives up to the light. But, in a welcome twist of fate, my last roll of film got stuck in the camera, snapping only a few 3D pics before I had to pull it out, and the photolab doesn’t seem to have charged me extra to scan these. Now that I know the camera can actually take photographs in focus, I’m going to invest in my own scanner and then I can do this all the time. Yay! This pic is from the Melbourne Zombie Shuffle. That’s how long I’ve been waiting.

I’ve been volunteering as part of the media team for the Vancouver Mini Maker Faire. If you are not familiar with the ‘Maker movement‘ it basically encompasses anyone who is engaged in the act of making. The Maker Faire is a yearly event that began in California. The Vancouver event, which happened this past weekend, is one of the satellite events that has sprung up in Maker Faire’s wake – hence the ‘Mini’. So a Maker can be anyone with a DIY mindset, whether they come from a background of arts, craft, engineering or science. The event featured an abundance of robots, 3D printers, interactive projections, circuit making and bending, quilting, embroidery, paper craft, vehicles, surfboards… and the list goes on. It’s basically like a science fair for adults. I helped out by interviewing makers for ‘Meet Your Makers’ blog posts. As you can imagine, it’s given me access to some truly fascinating interview subjects.

Idea # 32: Turn an ironic kitschy yet glam pic in the style of this friend’s tumblr Mood board into a cross stitched work of art for my wall. I love cross stitch but want to use a completely unexpected image.

Idea # 33: Get an old frame and weave string or wire across it an fix air plants to it as a wall garden. Inspired by seeing these air plants at Maker Faire out of the typical glass terrarium hangers, and from this pin on Pinterest.

Idea #34: Recycle old jars and bottles as terrariums to hang in the window. So far I have only made terrariums to sit on my shelves, but since my herbs aren’t doing well with only North-facing, indirect light, I should embrace the tropicals with a terrarium window garden.

Idea #35: Make some macrame hanging pot holders for the hooks I discovered in the hallway near my kitchen. I found instructions here and here, but still looking for where to get the macrame cord.

Idea #36: Make my new social media buddy Vea come to all the meet ups I’ve been wanting to go to but am too scared to attend alone!

Idea#37: Surround myself with more blue things to inspire creativity! And then pull in some red when it comes to crunch time. Re: this article.

You know what I mean. That perfect window of time when the sun is getting low in the sky. It’s like you and your camera can’t go wrong. I’ll never get over what that moment will do for a photo. These are more of my 35mm Olympus Trip pics from New Jersey, this time with ordinary colour film. I’m loving the orange glow of the light in the trees and it’s colour coordination with the neon orange hats we wore in case it was hunting season! Note: Morgan and Jay trying to look as if they are actually shooting something significant rather than just firing BB guns into the bushes.

In the lead up to Vancouver Draw Down – “a celebration of drawing in everyday life,” there was a drawing project that invited everyone to follow daily instructions to create one drawing per day for a month. I jumped on the bandwagon late, after I discovered it on Facebook, but it was fun to have these simple challenges to remind me that everyone can draw – in under 15 minutes! Here are the ones I participated in.

Day 23: Draw A Crumpled Piece of Paper

Day 24: Draw a Map (this was a map of that day’s activities)

Day 27: Draw a flower with your eyes closed

I would have loved to make it to the day of drawing events on June 9th, but I was away in scenic Ucluelet, on Vancouver Island for a special event! Next year I’ll have to try to complete the whole month’s worth of daily drawings.

Have you seen coloured smoke bombs? They are like a firework that you light, but instead of shooting sparks into the sky they release a plume of coloured smoke. Fireworks are not something we get to play with all that much in Australia. When we visited a pal in New Jersey, she happened to have some of these little gems, so we headed to the nearest deserted cornfield to let them off (as you do). Having posted about the beautiful photography of Ignacio Torres recently on tumblr, I had some high hopes for snapping a few shots. But of course, like fireworks, it’s all a race to light the fuse, run back and get a good vantage point. You are at the mercy of the wind direction and time, and in my case, the slower workings of a film camera. I used the Olympus Trip with 100 ISO slide film again. The results are not quite as magical as the effects achieved with coloured powder in this video, this video and this one – but I did enjoy the stark appearance of the dry, broken corn stalks against the soft smoke and the eerily dark sky.

Ahh camping! That picture is from my favourite camping spot, and is making me long for another trip. Luckily, I’ve managed to chase the summer by moving to Canada and it will soon be appropriate weather for such trips again.

But this is about a rediscovered, old camera that was a hand-me-down from my father. I recall being allowed to take it to school camp in grade six, and it still has the now-weathered masking tape with my name written on it in Mum’s handwriting. When I started getting into film photography again, thanks mostly to lomography, I never considered that we might have a point and shoot in the family that could be worth using. (My sister has already snagged the SLR – her pictures are fantastic, take a look.) I found this Olympus Trip 35, at the bottom of an old box and I showed it to my sister, thinking she might want it. She told me that she had already bought one from Ebay – and that she had been keeping an eye out for one to buy me as a gift, that’s how good it is! So, I was really looking forward to seeing what it could do. Here are some of the first pictures I’ve taken with it, during camping trips back home, shot with 100 ISO slide film. I seem to have a thing for this recurring camping chair off-centre composition!

My mate’s kid at the Hume Weir. Gotta love the ‘tude in her expression!

And a couple of shots in the Otways over New Year’s. The way the filtered rays of light were captured was a lovely discovery.

I realised that I still have pictures to post of the objects from my youth. See other posts here and here. These items are quite representative of ‘growing up.’ Above is my green belt, the level I reached in karate. That’s until I got sick of going to classes where there was no one else my age and I either had to spar with over-zealous younger boys who would be using all their strength on me while I was holding back from hurting them, or fully grown men who I couldn’t even reach high enough to punch.

This is my first perfume, a nearly empty bottle handed down to me by my mother. Oh Anais Anais – its scent is as elderly as its bottle design.

My first pair of glasses. No wonder these ended up staying in the case more often than not. Mmmm tortoiseshell.

My first watch. One of those ones that has the number of the minutes as well as the hours, for learning to tell the time. I probably need it again now, since I’m so used to digital.

And this little number is the uber geeky wallet chain I used so that I wouldn’t loose my bus pass in the first year of high school. Those yearlies were precious! At the time I thought it was just so darn practical, though I do recall being mocked by other kids but I think I just didn’t care. It was like, them: Oh my god what is that! (mocking tone) Me: Oh look it’s soooo useful, it just goes on this button on my school dress and into my pocket and I won’t loose my bus pass! (oblivious to mocking)